how does each character change when they are forced to leave the island? Is America responsible for adults that each girl becomes ?

The eldest of the four sisters, Carla was around 12 when the family moved to the United States, and had great difficulty adjusting to the new country. Her disturbing experience of going through puberty in an alien—and sometimes hostile—culture may have contributed to her decision to become a child psychologist. She is married to the analyst she began seeing when her first marriage fell apart, and often speaks to him in psychology jargon that irritates her younger sisters.

Sandra becomes obsessed with weight loss and suffers a nervous breakdown in graduate school, for which she is temporarily committed to a private mental hospital.

Yolanda has a nervous breakdown during her first marriage and is committed to a private mental hospital where she suffers an "allergic reaction" to words like "love" and "alive."

Sofia is Known as the "maverick" of the family, the youngest daughter Sofía drops out of college and is the only girl without an advanced degree. She runs away from home to elope with her husband, a German chemist named Otto whom she met on the street in Colombia.

So is living in America responsible for hoe these girls turn out? The environment in America is decidedly different to their own culture in the D.R. Issues of gender roles, sex, love and marriage both test the girls and broaden their horizons. Still America is not the sole determiner of their fate. If you notice, each girl had a unique set of personality traits to begin with. Much of their experience in America was merely interpreted through these traits.